Gun Control

[ICantSpellDawg]

I've just sent this to my Representative. I wrote it when I got home. What do you think? I think it will go a long way to reduce gun crime rates over the next 10 years AND help avoid many mass-shootings. It would also expand the rights of sane, law abiding citizens, with other sane, law abiding citizens living in their home to own the type of guns that it is their civic duty to own and protect.

National High Capacity WeaponRegulation

A balanced approach which protects therights of the citizen in all areas.


I.NICS
NICS check as currently used is required at time of purchase for all firearms sales. Federal, State and local government will not keep records of passed background checks longer than 48 hours, but FFL's will be required to keep a copy on hand in the case of a warranted search. Private sales will also require an NICS check, but the feefor such check is not to exceed $5 per.

II.Weapon Type Classes
Class 3 - consists of select fire rifles, shotguns and pistols.
Class 2- all semi-automatic rifles & shotguns with a detachable magazine and a capacity greater than 7 rounds. Includes all pistol types
Class 1 - consists of all other rifles and shotguns


Requirements for class ownership:


Class 1 weapons will be regulated only by NICS background check at time of purchase. These items can be owned by all citizens and lawful residents over 18 using Federal or State government issued picture ID except forviolent or gun related felons, and people with a history ofpsychotic mental illness and/or court ordered in-patient mental health treatment within the past 8 years.

Class 2 weapons will be regulated by a 3-6 month initial mental health background check with in-person interview carried out by the State, County or Municipal government in which you reside. This license will renew every 5 years with updated NICS check which can be retained by NICS. Individuals will be issued a picture ID card titled “Class 2”which will be required in order to buy the aforementioned class 2 firearms. Individual NICS checks will also be required with each purchase. These ID's are to be issued on a “shall issue” basis,barring any serious criminal or mental health concerns including: inpatient mental health treatment within the past 10 years, out-patient mental health treatment within the past 5 years, felony conviction, among others.

Class 3 weapons will be issued only to Law Enforcement, Military and qualifying FFL's on a “may issue” basis.

1. Safe Requirements

For individuals who are themselves licensed Class 2 living in the home of someone who is specifically ineligible for a Class 2 license (determined by the initial interview and subsequent renewals) an initial “safe endorsement” is required prior to purchase of a firearm. This is a one time endorsement and can be added by the FFL upon sale of thesafe, or by County/State government upon inspection of the safe.


Addendum:

Pre-Emption Clause
Although State, County and Municipal licensing authorities may usesome discretion in determining barring circumstances for Class 2 and 3 licensing, no law shall be construed to substantially restrict or expand the rights beyond this law. State and local government are still able to regulate concealed and open carry laws. This law does not address this issue on a National basis at present.


Saleswithout an NICS background check
Sales of Class 1 weapons, without using an NICS background check, are Class B misdemeanors, except: this requirement will not apply totransactions within immediate family (husband, wife, son, daughter). Sales performed, knowingly or unknowingly, to individuals who are barred from ownership will be considered a Class E felony.

Serial Records
Serialized records of make and model will be kept only in relation to the FFL who stores or has sold the item. The make and model will be retained indefinitely by the FFL in connection with the purchasee, but will be demanded by the government only upon warranted search. This is to prevent linking the serial number of each weapon with the owner directly, and will create a buffer by which a regulated warranting process will be required for records. This restriction will not apply to Class 3 weapons which must be serialized and a record will exist in a central database administered by Municipal, County, State, or Federal agencies.

Version 2.0

EDIT: in the document, the spacing looks good

[Husar]

I think your space key is broken.

As for the content, it won't help, there are already 999,999,999.99 guns in the USA and they won't go away and criminals can get illegal guns all the time anyway. Despite that, any law that doesn't make criminal gun ownership go away within the current election cycle is completely useless because seriously, who wants to make the world a better place for today's spoiled brats children?
Oh and you focus on mental health checks, but what exactly makes a person mentally ill and how are all murderers mentally ill? Is there even any research as to how and why murders are mentally ill and how to find out before they kill people? Will socially isolated people be called mentally ill from now on?

[Fragony]

Got a perfect solution, keep easily conceiled small arms lockep up at the shooting range, and allow larger arms like shotguns and assault rifles to be held legally at home, in bigger cities at least. Wrongdoers will be outgunned if they enter private property, and you can't carry around a weapon you can't conceal without someone noticing. Everybody happy. Ok it's not perfect but it's better imho.

[Idaho]

I'm guessing that the whole home invasion successfully defended by plucky gun owners is actually a real rarity. You are probably a thousand times more likely to be killed in a car crash.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I was trying to be moderate. I am personally in favor of select-fire weapons being in the hands of everyone including all but the most dangerous criminals, so long as everyone is armed to the teeth. We can meet near the middle if we try. You want nobody to have any guns, I want everyone to have all of the guns. I place a high value on the second amendment. Any changes in gun ownership barring the majority of violent felons and the seriously or dangerously mentally ill is a long haul strategy. If you want anything in the short term with the Second Amendment still in the Constitution, you've are barking up the wrong tree; unless you just want them to dismiss stare decisis and interpret any individual right to arms for self defense related or unrelated to the militia out. The problem is that this thought process - of interpreting out the inconvenient - works for all of the amendments.

There is no reason to ban "high capacity semi-auto" guns when we havn't even tried to create a permitting process for them. Permitting works in the long term . Suffolk county, where I live, has pistol permits and very low handgun crime. It is extremely difficult to buy a handgun in Suffolk without a fairly irritating degree of red tape. If the entire country had this process for pistols and high capacity rifles, gun crime efficacy would be way down. We know that handguns are protected by the second amendment and we have created a permitting process for them in some areas. Handguns are involved in somewhere near 93% of all gun homicides. Why the all or nothing strategy with what is commonly and unreasonably referred to as "assault weapons"?

The idea that the radical right to bear arms, institutionalized in the U.S. and a few other countries, can be combined at this point with an expansive amount of background protections is a turning point. We should not be banning weapons, but rather making sure that the process is just onerous enough to bar dangers to society. We can try something new and American and reduce crime rates, without destroying our rights to arms.

EDIT: I cleaned up the spacing and added another part to the Addendum regarding serialization and record keeping.

[Hooahguy]

Isnt there another thread about this topic?

Getting tired of this topic.

[Fragony]

I'm guessing that the whole home invasion successfully defended by plucky gun owners is actually a real rarity. You are probably a thousand times more likely to be killed in a car crash.

Sure, but think of it. Americans will never give up their guns, I agree with them but that's not the point. If you leave the right to have shotguns and assault rifles intact as long as it is private property, but ban having smaller weapons in private property, you have a win-win situation. It should please everyone when done right. People who practise it as a sport have their pistols firmly locked down at the shooting range, and people who have it for protection have bigger guns. It would solve a lot.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Mandating that people keep handguns at home WILL DO NOTHING to deter crime. Let them carry if they own it and prove competent to carry (via some safety course standard). The people who are crazy are going to carry anyway, especially if it was already at home. Plus, handguns are protected by the second amendment. Don't believe me? Ask the DC v Heller decision.

(3) The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition – in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute – would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.

[Fragony]

Mandating that people keep handguns at home WILL DO NOTHING to deter crime. Let them carry if they own it and prove competent to carry (via some safety course standard). The people who are crazy are going to carry anyway, especially if it was already at home. Plus, handguns are protected by the second amendment. Don't believe me? Ask the DC v Heller decision.

There are no perfect solutions for anything, but isn't it a bit hypocrite to allow handguns in a society where the government is expected to protect anything that goes beyond the public realm. Split up these realms instead, a private and a public one.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Who expects the government to protect them from "anything that goes beyond the public realm"? Are you talking about the Netherlands? I don't follow, please elaborate.

[Fragony]

Who expects the government to protect them from "anything that goes beyond the public realm"? Are you talking about the Netherlands? I don't follow, please elaborate.

Police got the streets, we got our homes. If criminals bring pistols if we can legally have shotguns they don't stand a chance. Streets won't be me much safer if handguns are just banned but that is where taxes are for no?

[Fragony]

Double

[ICantSpellDawg]

No. I like the idea of carry with some training and I intentionally left this out of the initial post

[Montmorency]

You want nobody to have any guns, I want everyone to have all of the guns.

The thought strikes me that no "in-between" is possible, at least not on anything less than the long-term policy scale of centuries. You are in the right for acknowledging that any 'solution' must be applied nationwide, at least...

So, if a consistent and stable OWG is not a possible prerequisite, then the only real options are to allow guns freely (which seems to be your ideal) or to declare a War on Guns to rid the country of every privately-owned firearm, putting police and military arsenals under permanent high-security (or even 'demilitarizing' wholesale), making firearm-related offenses capital crimes, purging the market of gun-parts, flooding the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) with funding and widening their authority/remit...

So your ideal seems more workable, but I'm not sure I like the sound of it. Middle-ground it is; hopefully it could work.

Thankfully, this is all academic and any "middle-ground" national legislation that does happen to arise (and I believe none will be passed) would be poorly conceived, inarticulate, ineffective, and/or sporadically executed - and it would expire, be heavily modified or be repealed within only a couple of decades. Each of us can soundly dream that his own perspective is correct. It's probably better for our peace-of-mind...

[Fragony]

No. I like the idea of carry with some training and I intentionally left this out of the initial post

I don't mind owning one but why would you actually carry something that lethal. It can only get you into trouble

[Hooahguy]

I don't mind owning one but why would you actually carry something that lethal. It can only get you into trouble

Protection, really. Guns are the great equalizer- an attacker might have 200lbs on me, but I have a gun and a bullet goes into him just the same as it would for me. While you may not need one in the Netherlands, or many parts of Western Europe for that matter, I wouldnt walk alone late at night in pretty much any US city. Especially Chicago. A friend of mine from there has been mugged numerous times in that city.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Thankfully, this is all academic and any "middle-ground" national legislation that does happen to arise (and I believe none will be passed) would be poorly conceived, inarticulate, ineffective, and/or sporadically executed - and it would expire, be heavily modified or be repealed within only a couple of decades. Each of us can soundly dream that his own perspective is correct. It's probably better for our peace-of-mind...

America in a nutshell.

[Fragony]

Protection, really. Guns are the great equalizer- an attacker might have 200lbs on me, but I have a gun and a bullet goes into him just the same as it would for me. While you may not need one in the Netherlands, or many parts of Western Europe for that matter, I wouldnt walk alone late at night in pretty much any US city. Especially Chicago. A friend of mine from there has been mugged numerous times in that city.

Give them what they want if you get mugged, might be humiliating but it's better

[Hooahguy]

Not in the case of rape.

[Fragony]

Not in the case of rape.

Can't control everything. But you should never leave a girl unattended among drunk people anyway. Can't bring a gun into a nghtclub anyhow

[Hooahguy]

And rape is only committed by drunk people in nightclubs?

[Beskar]

And rape is only committed by drunk people in nightclubs?

If you want to be specific, vast majority of rape cases is where you know the rapist, such a family member or friend of the family.

But the stereotypical example in movies and media is drunk girl in skimpy outfit attempting to get home, perhaps even doped, then grubby ugly drunk person targets them in a back alleyway. Fragony is more saying that the night clubs would have prevented the girl from having a firearm on her person and Frags recommended not going home alone in a vulnerable state. Which are examples of issues which subscribe to that stereotype.

[Xiahou]

I've just sent this to my Representative. I wrote it when I got home. What do you think? I think it will go a long way to reduce gun crime rates over the next 10 years AND help avoid many mass-shootings. It would also expand the rights of sane, law abiding citizens, with other sane, law abiding citizens living in their home to own the type of guns that it is their civic duty to own and protect.

Gun ownership has is way up in the last 20 years and violent crime has gone way down. One could reasonably argue that there is no gun problem that needs addressed by new legislation.

How about a baby step before the big leap forward that you're suggesting? Cut down on straw purchases and gun smuggling by limiting gun purchases per month. Just to throw out a number... let's say 6 guns a month. Unless you're equipping a militia, that should suffice. No more buying 30 pistols a week and driving them to the Mexican border.

What would this do to address scenarios like the Sandy Hook massacre? Nothing. No reasonable laws would.

[Hax]

Gun ownership has is way up in the last 20 years and violent crime has gone way down. One could reasonably argue that there is no gun problem that needs addressed by new legislation.

But that kinda glosses over other factors that may have contributed to the decrease in violent crime.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Gun ownership has is way up in the last 20 years and violent crime has gone way down. One could reasonably argue that there is no gun problem that needs addressed by new legislation.

How about a baby step before the big leap forward that you're suggesting? Cut down on straw purchases and gun smuggling by limiting gun purchases per month. Just to throw out a number... let's say 6 guns a month. Unless you're equipping a militia, that should suffice. No more buying 30 pistols a week and driving them to the Mexican border.

What would this do to address scenarios like the Sandy Hook massacre? Nothing. No reasonable laws would.

Why not one gun a month?

Six a month is a maximum of 72 a year.

Why not six a year? Realistically, who needs more than six guns?

The US really needs to come down on these vigilante groups trying to set themselves up as militias too - they're a public danger by their very nature.

[Xiahou]

But that kinda glosses over other factors that may have contributed to the decrease in violent crime.

That's besides the point. I wasn't arguing a direct causal relationship so much as pointing out that more guns do NOT equal more violent crime.

Why not one gun a month?

Six a month is a maximum of 72 a year.

Why not six a year? Realistically, who needs more than six guns?

I'm not going to try to decide how many guns a person "needs". What I think we should do is place a limit on gun purchases that is just low enough to stop someone from making a living off of being a straw purchaser.

[ICantSpellDawg]

The rally in Albany brought approx 2000 people. It was impressive and freezing. I heard that turnout around the country was pretty good. I live in NY, I have had luck pushing this plan on the liberals in my state. My plan is to have them approach us with this plan, rather than have us approach them with it. If this is their starting point, compromise is a much better scenario. If I were the G.O.P. House and a tightly locked Senate, I wouldn't give an inch. We will wait until we have either both houses or House the executive. At that point we'll be able to push for a national carry law along with any reforms and the middle ground will be decided more on our terms.

Here is a neat graph, illustrating the drop in homicides over the past few years while the ownership of high powered firearms has hit record levels. Notice the level of deaths caused by rifles and what direction they are moving in spite of record numbers of AR/AK buyers.

[Montmorency]

That's besides the point. I wasn't arguing a direct causal relationship so much as pointing out that more guns do NOT equal more violent crime.

The latter implies the former, so that's a bit dishonest. But this relationship certainly doesn't necessarily imply that gun-quantity does not affect the level of violent crime. Perhaps without so many guns the drop in crime rates would have been even greater? Prove me wrong.

Here is a neat graph, illustrating the drop in homicides over the past few years while the ownership of high powered firearms has hit record levels. Notice the level of deaths caused by rifles and what direction they are moving in spite of record numbers of AR/AK buyers.

That chart is only for death by murder; suicide, homicide of accident/manslaughter... not reflected. Looking it up for myself:

Half of suicide by gun, out of up to 40000-a-year.

CDC lists 19400 by gun-suicide in 2010, so my approximation of 20K is about corect.

CDC further lists 600 killed (in 2010) by "accidental discharge" (an admittedly small figure), and 11000 gun "homicides" - I assume this means something over 2000 killed through manslaughter-by-gun, subtracting from the FBI figures for murder that you put up.

CDC: 31,672 firearm deaths in 2010. Suicide + homicide + accidental discharge and it adds up.

850 deaths by accidental discharge in 2011 - a leap of over 40%. Interesting... Also in 2011, a near-2% rise in suicide-death by firearm.

In 2011 (still above link), 32000+ accidental injuries by firearm.

As for historical trends on suicide, injury, and accidental-discharge death - someone else can do that; I've done my part.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Without question, if a particular gun is connected with abnormal accidental discharge rates, the company should be potentially negligent if investigation should manufacturing fault.

You can't blame guns for suicide, people want to kill themselves lately all over the place in record numbers. You'd just prefer that they take pills or slit their writs? it is way less effective. If people use a gun to do it, that's their own problem. Policies can be put in place to discourage this behavior, as I'm sure the NY requirement that therapists must report all individuals who seem dangerous to the authorities will do...

[Montmorency]

You'd just prefer that they take pills or slit their writs? it is way less effective.

That's a matter of one's personal view on suicide and "right to death"...

If people use a gun to do it, that's their own problem.

If one believes in permitting suicide where it is desired, then one might agree to guns used in 'executions of charity', but not as DIY - certainly if "effectiveness" or lethality are sought after...

But the main point is that guns make suicide easier, regardless of ideology or taste.

Policies can be put in place to discourage this behavior

This falls under mental-health care reform.